


Out of Time

by Argyle



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crawley the Serpent, Garden of Eden, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-13
Updated: 2007-07-13
Packaged: 2018-01-13 03:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1210696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life's a game of give and take.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Time

“I’ll not be a moment,” Aziraphale’s voice piped from the top of the stair.  
  
“We’ll miss the show,” Crowley called after him. “Is that what you want?”  
  
“Of course not.”  
  
“Well, then you’d better--”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Nothing,” Crowley mumbled, slumping down onto the settee. If the angel was determined to take his grand old time getting ready for their night out, he sure as heaven wasn’t going to respond in kind with an exercise in rebuttal.  
  
Of course, “moment” was one of those funny, open-ended terms which encouraged the meaning of the speaker to be lost in the audience’s translation. And of course Crowley was all for that sort of thing, but he somehow supposed Nelson wouldn’t have taken kindly to being held up at the docks for cargo inspection before the Battle of Trafalgar, and nor would John Q. Patrician have waited on a lawn chair, martini in hand, while Vesuvius blew its top.  
  
Why was this so different? The theatre tickets he’d procured hadn’t come cheap.  
  
“And anyway,” Aziraphale was saying, “I hear the cast is superb.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Especially that new chap. What’s he called?”  
  
“Search me.”  
  
“Maximilian Rose, isn’t it?”  
  
Crowley’s mouth twitched. “That isn’t his _real_ name, you know.”  
  
“Yes, I had supposed as much,” Aziraphale mused. His voice faded for a moment, and Crowley could hear the decidedly non-ethereal thump of footsteps in a creaking path above his head. And then, louder once more, “One wonders why a person wouldn’t be satisfied with what he’s been given. It’s rather showy, don’t you think?”  
  
“I’m sure the Hubert Cumberdales of the world would disagree with you.”  
  
“Yes,” Aziraphale said again. “Well. At least they’re in good company.”  
  
The hall clock rang out seven-thirty, each hour clanking melodiously against the walls and windowpanes. Crowley stood, dashed a hand through his hair, and crossed the room several times before he paused to gaze down at Aziraphale’s lousy excuse for an arboretum: there was a small date palm in a blue blown-glass pot, a spider plant and a yew, a jade and a snaggletoothed fern.  
  
The latter had been something of a joke. On a whim, Crowley bought it from a kerbside fruit vendor in Finchley, thought even then it was quite the most repugnant plant he’d ever encountered. Its fronds were a sickly shade of green, falling to bruised purple along the stems, and the occasional berries which sprung up in occasional springs left violent stains on the carpeting.  
  
He’d kept the blessed thing around for years, confident that his other plants would be sufficiently ashamed into beauty by its mere presence. But eventually, even _he_ couldn’t stand the sight of it, and eventually he left it on Aziraphale’s doorstep.  
  
The fern became a permanent installation in the shop.  
  
Crowley felt its presence acutely. It wasn’t so much an accusation which eked out of its shoots like so much oxygen, but rather that it had found itself in a better place, and the other plants Aziraphale added to its sides were no less hideous and malformed.  
  
They were also astonishingly healthy. Each limb and liver-breasted leaf shone with something not unlike indoctrinated pride, and perhaps even more deviously, they strived to be the very best disgusting specimens they could be.  
  
Crowley had all but given up trying to determine what it was Aziraphale did to them. It certainly wasn’t consistent or gentle care: the angel often let them sit, sometimes leaving them without water for weeks on end while he was out gallivanting about the countryside, or simply immersed neck-deep in his latest literary acquisition. Naturally, Crowley allowed himself the occasional discreet, off-hours peek through the shop window to see whether the plants were not in fact tended by some sort of spellbound horticultural master.  
  
But then again, no: there was only Aziraphale, pruning them with a pair of sterling shears, a dingy watering pail, and a song beneath his breath. And then again, perhaps it really was something of an accusation.  
  
The fern shivered beneath Crowley’s stare; then it shuddered.  
  
“That’s right,” Crowley whispered. “I remember _you_. It’s only that we’re in a hurry tonight, and I won’t have time to have a _proper_ chat. Don’t think I’ll be so easy next time.”  
  
“Beg pardon?” Aziraphale asked.  
  
“Nothing.” With that, Crowley glanced meaningfully between the other plants, his arms folded over his chest. He only turned round when he felt Aziraphale at his side.  
  
The angel smiled in a way that was both irritating and oddly attractive, his teeth strikingly white against the ruddiness of his face. Indeed, Crowley had never seen the term “scrub up” taken to such a far conclusion; he smelled soap on Aziraphale’s skin, and also a whiff of sandalwood drawer liner. His stomach clenched.  
  
“Is this a bad time, my dear? I always _hate_ to walk in on a row.”  
  
“On the contrary,” Crowley replied smoothly. He pushed his sunglasses back up on his nose. “I was simply admiring your uncanny gardening skills. What is that, crabgrass? Really, Aziraphale, I didn’t think you had it in you.”  
  
“That’s what you said last time. They’re still here, aren’t they?”  
  
“Apparently. All things bright and beautiful, or whatnot.”  
  
Aziraphale let out a low chuckle. “Would you like to know the trick?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“I assure you, it’s really quite simple—”  
  
“Not to mention far more interesting than our plans for the evening. Especially the roast duck and the Château Lafite, and, I don’t know, _box seats_ at a sold out performance.”  
  
“Mm.” Aziraphale’s smile broadened, and he glanced at his watch dreamily. “Perhaps you’re right...”  
  
“I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t,” Crowley replied. As they turned to the door, he stealthily reached forward to Aziraphale’s plant table, not pausing a beat as he pocketed the pruning shears.  
  


*     *     *

  
  
“Pass the pears,” said the angel, licking a streak of plum juice from this hand.  
  
The serpent shook his long head. “We’re out.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Just what I said: when you have a finite number of things, and then use up said finite number of things, you’re left with nothing. Hence, we’re out.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“But there’re still plenty of figs.”  
  
“And pomegranates.”  
  
“Too messy.”  
  
“Speak for yourself,” Aziraphale chided, and pulled a small paring knife from his robe. Gently, gently, he sliced through the thick, ruddy flesh, and then slipped his fingertips into the pitted core. He’d long since admitted that when one got past the whole seedy, sticky, slimy mess bit, the pomegranates weren’t bad. He munched a mouthful of fruit, and then proceeded to project bare seeds into the nearby bracken. “Mm.”  
  
“The pips’re edible, you know,” Crawly snorted. And then, a bit more slowly, “Bet you couldn’t hit that palm trunk.”  
  
“I hit it last week.”  
  
“With your head, you mean.”  
  
“Yes, well. It was dark.”  
  
“Go on.”  
  
“You think I can’t hit the trunk?”  
  
“I _know_ you can’t. It isn’t a question of thought.”  
  
“Clearly _that_ would be too much of a struggle,” Aziraphale said, a trifle pettishly. He narrowed his eyes. “And you think _you_ could?”  
  
“Obviously.”  
  
“But who’d be there to judge?”  
  
Crawly held himself up, his back taut and steady, until he stood at eyelevel with Aziraphale. He smiled, offering, “Honor system.”  
  
“You must be joking.”  
  
“I never joke about my livelihood.”  
  
“How exactly is this little... challenge... even _remotely_ related to your livelihood?”  
  
“Skill honing.”  
  
“Shooting pips from one’s mouth is a skill?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Aziraphale paused. The sun had begun to sink towards the horizon, lazily streaking the treetops with warm orange phosphorescence. And then he said, “I’d say it’s more talent than skill.”  
  
“Talents are innate. You have to work at skills.”  
  
“And you’ve worked at spitting seeds?”  
  
Crawly shrugged. As serpents lacked shoulders, in lesser hands it could have come off as more of a _squirm_ , but Crawly got it just right. Aziraphale was offhandedly impressed, but pursed his lips as he waited for Crawly to reply: “Not as such.”  
  
“I thought not.”  
  
“But wouldn’t you say that sufficiently evens the playing field? You’re a poor shot, and I’m under-practiced. There isn’t even a breeze.”  
  
Aziraphale shook his head, and said, not a little sullenly, “You’ve still quite an unfair advantage – that tongue of yours must be a foot long.”  
  
“Sixteen inches,” Crawly corrected, rising up a bit further. “Give or take.”  
  
“Well, there you have it.”  
  
Crawly shrugged again. Impressively. Not too much in the way of poise, Aziraphale thought, but quite an effective gesture nonetheless. High above them, a flock of starlings settled into the uppermost boughs of yew.  
  
“The _things_ you find entertaining,” Aziraphale murmured, after a while. He dried his hands on the verge, re-sheathed his knife, and straightened the folds of his robe. “Why, it’s a wonder anything ever gets done.”  
  
“Just one round, eh?”  
  
“Best of three.”  
  


*     *     *

  
  
“Just a moment,” Crowley’s voice warbled out from the kitchen, below the thump of the stereo and above the rapid patter of Aziraphale’s fingertips atop the end table. There was a low clang, and then, “Okay. I have red, red, and red.”  
  
“At the risk of being redundant...” Aziraphale replied ruefully.  
  
“Sorry?”  
  
“The Chianti, if it’s not a bother.”  
  
“Chianti. No problem.”  
  
“You know, you were right about Maximilian Rose. Quite a talent, though I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d seen him before.”  
  
“He was in an advert for Italian sausages a while back.”  
  
“Really? No, you must be joking.”  
  
“Yes, I am, actually.”  
  
Aziraphale sighed. “Do you know him quite well, then?”  
  
“Well enough.”  
  
If Crowley’s voice was cast in delicate distaste, he disguised it flawlessly, and Aziraphale made no further comment. Meanwhile, the scrabbling in the kitchen picked up: pots and pans clanked, boxes fell, silverware clattered.  
  
Aziraphale strained round in his seat, craning his neck in hope of a better view. “Can I help you with that?” he called. “I’d hate for you to hit your head or something. It must be dark in there.”  
  
There was a pause in the cacophony. Crowley cleared his throat. “Why? Are you in some sort of hurry?”  
  
“No, it’s only--”  
  
“Because you realize you’ve only just arrived.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Better grab the Margaux as well.”  
  
“Too kind,” said Aziraphale. He steadied his hands on his lap, glanced once towards the kitchen, and then swiftly stood.  
  
It took several turns around the room before he built up the gumption to stand before Crowley’s bookshelves. A thousand day-glo paperback spines gleamed out at him, each one all but calling out to the heavens for the sake of its sensationalistic title. Here was _The Incredible Amazon Boat Chase_ in red and gold, _Thunderball_ in yellow, and that old albatross _Tarzan and Octopus Man Battle the Foreign Legion at the Earth’s Core_ in blue and gold embossing. There were spy novels, mysteries, science fiction stories, and adventures, all pristine and bright, carefully arranged on their shelves.  
  
Indeed, the combined impression of the colors was almost dazzling: if he held his head just so, and all but closed his eyes, he wouldn’t be able to distinguish the tableau before him from that of the first dawn.  
  
Aziraphale shook himself. Then he took a deep breath; the dry, heady scent of brittle pulp and cheap ink filled his lungs. He could hear Crowley’s continued rummagings in the kitchen.  
  
“You seem to have added a few since I was last here.”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“Books.” The word fell from Aziraphale’s lips like a stone. “Your collection.”  
  
“Oh,” said Crowley. His voice seemed to grow closer for a moment, but then receded. “Clearing house ran a promotion last month. It was one of those door-to-door jobs. Kids with brain tumors pawning their wares.”  
  
“Really, Crowley. I didn’t know you had it in you.”  
  
Crowley guffawed obligingly. “The charity’s run by a multi-national corporation which specializes in dumping post-consumer waste down ocean trenches. I like to consider the book thing a cost of business, but with an added bonus: choose three from their catalogue, get two free.”  
  
“You mean to say,” Aziraphale replied slowly, “you ordered them without perusal?”  
  
“I perused the _catalogue_.”  
  
“Small wonder.” Aziraphale turned back to gape at the bookcase, only then noticing the thick stack of magazines which leaned against the top shelf. With utmost care, he lifted one free, and immediately felt his balance waver. The titles were arranged by genre rather than author or title; here were the very same spy novels, the mysteries and adventures which gaped out at him in the flesh.  
  
The Mass Market Book Club even offered free shipping on orders placed via computer.  
  
The notion was jarring.  
  
Aziraphale grimaced and took a step closer. It was only then that he realized that interspersed throughout the stacks were older volumes, no worse for the wear of centuries, though their bindings were gray and the gold leafing on the covers, once magnificent, appeared dull against the vivid surroundings.  
  
He recognized several penny dreadfuls he’d bought for Crowley as a gag: he slid them beneath Crowley’s door in 1877, knowing full well that Crowley was still asleep, and that they’d likely crumble to so much dust before ever being read. However, the notion of subconscious suggestion had lately fallen into popular favor, and after so many years as a shopkeeper, Aziraphale was nothing if not confident in his ability to influence reality. If Crowley should develop a resulting case of bibliomania via osmosis, well, who was Aziraphale to complain? It was only the proximity that worried him.  
  
But Crowley had awoken, bleary-eyed though hardly bedraggled, with only a taste for newspaper serials and illustrated advertisements. Indeed, he looked much as he did now, sliding out from the kitchen with a bottle in each hand. But then again, he was sure the facts of Crowley’s unbuttoned collar, Crowley’s flushed cheeks and carefully windblown hair, were reserved to the present. One in the morning rang out in the room above them.  
  
Crowley smiled as Aziraphale took a long stride back from the bookcase. “See anything you like?” he asked with mock seriousness.  
  
“Oh, I don’t know,” Aziraphale said. “They’re _all_ so _tempting_.”  
  
“I had a feeling you’d say that. Well, they won’t look so bad after a few glasses.” A pause, and then, “Glasses. Right.”  
  
Crowley trotted back into the kitchen.  
  
“You know,” Aziraphale called after him, “I think I may have a volume or two on practical home organization back at my shop.”  
  
“Third shelf, second section.”  
  
“Ha, ha.”  
  
“Or perhaps the second shelf, third section.”  
  
Aziraphale scanned through the stacks until he came to them: _The Stately Home_ , _Better Storage and Shelving_ , and _Easy Tips for Space Management_. “You were right the first time,” he said, and reached forward. “ _Taming the Garden_?”  
  
“That one’s a mystery.”  
  
“So it is.” Aziraphale flipped through the pristine pages, and noted, rather smugly, the absence of pages 23 through 26 and 301 through 316. Publishing houses got away with murder these days. Ghastly.  
  
“See, there’s this ghastly murder,” Crowley drawled. His voice preceded him by only a moment: he had two glasses clutched in one hand, and he gestured absently. “You know: a real gory mess, the likes of which could _only_ be dreamt up by a young ex-contract writer who’s low on gin and lower on mince pie. And so the Jesuit goes back in time to Babylon to solve the case, but first has to battle bees and mummies and mummies with pet bees.”  
  
“If the Jesuit was in the future, how could he know... No. Don’t tell me.”  
  
“Mystic scrolls.”  
  
“Held by a shocking, potentially evil coven of geriatric vagabonds?”  
  
“None other.”  
  
“You didn’t actually _read_ it, did you?”  
  
“I read the back. Who has time to read in entirety these days?” Crowley asked, and swiftly held up a pacifying hand. “Present company excluded. Generally speaking.”  
  
Aziraphale let out a long breath, and then took the hint. He stared over the frames of his spectacles and began to scan. Jesuits in Babylon, he thought, of all the preposterous... “It doesn’t say anything about bees.”  
  
“No?” Crowley closed in to look over Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Well, if you’ve read one blurb, you’ve read them all. There simply can’t be too many gripping, page-turning, coming-of-age parable-eque, tour de forces in this world,” he said, none-too-proudly.  
  
“Page-turning here having the meaning of watching a train wreck?”  
  
“Most authors write their own dust jackets,” Crowley mused, after a pause. “I shouldn’t blame them, what with the apparent dearth of gin. And now I think of it...”  
  
As Crowley turned to pour the wine, Aziraphale stealthily pushed the clearing house catalogue into his pocket: when one stood on the front lines of good taste, one had to take certain risks, to allow for a certain amount of disorganization. It wasn’t quite a cost of doing business, but it was close enough.  
  
  
\---------------------------  
  
[1] Crowley spent no less than twenty minutes waiting for the lead actor to come round to his dressing room after an especially successful dress rehearsal, and then another twenty coercing him into forking over an invitation to the premiere. Case in point, he’d only needed five minutes with Rudolph Valentino to achieve the same end, but times had changed: there was nothing he liked less than someone who’d done a little homework and henceforth fancied himself an expert in occult bargaining practices. Not for the first time, he regretted commissioning the invention of the Internet.  
  
[2] Aziraphale had long lobbied for easy access to written materials, and from the Gutenberg years on, he’d seen more than subtle progress. Now, any John Q. Patrician could walk into a corner shop to purchase the latest dime novel. Any Hubert Cumberdale could order volumes on the Battle of Trafalgar from the far reaches of the globe. But how could he have anticipated the force of nature represented by expedited catalogue shopping? Not for the first time, he regretted commissioning the invention of the Internet.


End file.
